Veggie Smarts

A nerdy farmer—and doctor with expertise in nutrition—explains how the vast majority of our vegetables come from just eight families of plants, which can guide how we eat them (“eight on my plate”), while recounting his journey of trading in city life to build a thriving organic vegetable farm.

Dr. Michael Compton shares his passionate and healthy approach to savoring vegetables daily from across eight veggie families: the Brassicas, the Alliums, the Legumes, the Chenopods, the Aster Greens, the Umbellifers, the Cucurbits, and the Nightshades. Trading in city life for an old stone house and a fertile field in the scenic and historic Hudson Valley of New York, Compton built a compact, organic-certified vegetable, fruit, and flower farm.

Compton shares lighthearted scientific facts, including why onions make us cry and how beets can make our pee pink, while providing nutritional information about the eight families of vegetables. As a farmer, he recounts growing a bounty of clean, delicious, and nutritious food for himself and so many others, and shares his exploration of those who farmed the land before him. You will delight in following his rewarding but sometimes frustrating efforts to reclaim old farmland for new adventures in organic farming. You might even find yourself wanting to test the greenness of your thumbs or to determine whether or not you too, are a natural-born berry picker.

This is a deeply personal celebration of growing and savoring life…and vegetables.